


Postcards from Paris

by CallipygianGoldfish



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Bucket List, Bucky Barnes Needs a Hug, Cute, First Kiss, Fluff and Angst, Found Family, Getting Together, Getting to Know Each Other, Love Confessions, M/M, Original Character(s), Post-Captain America: Civil War (Movie), Slow Build, Travel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-02
Updated: 2020-05-02
Packaged: 2021-03-01 17:33:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 13,577
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23970862
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CallipygianGoldfish/pseuds/CallipygianGoldfish
Summary: Bucky’s not running from his problems. Of course he’s not, he’s just taking a detour. One that involves pigeons, tattoos, sexy handcuffs, and sticking his head in the sand while pretending to be an ostrich. Okay, maybe not that last one, but wherever life takes him, he’s planning to make the most out of it.Bucky’s got things to do, a life to live, and he’s going to try his best to get to the bottom of his bucket list before his past catches up to him.
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes/Steve Rogers
Comments: 6
Kudos: 80





	Postcards from Paris

**Author's Note:**

> This is set just after Civil War, so please take everything with a pinch of salt, and imagine we’re still living in that 2012 idealistic time where everyone ends up mostly happy and alive. I started this in April 2016, so that should give you some context about how long it takes me to finish things! See end notes for warnings <3

Of course, Bucky has a bucket list.

He’s got a lot of spare time, and if he has to sit around in Wakanda while he waits for the scientists to do their stuff, he might as well make use of it. It’s pretty peaceful out by the lake, and he has the time to think about what one normally wants to fill a lifetime with. He doesn’t want to run a marathon, skydive or swim with elephants, he could die happy without those, but he admits there are some things he still needs to do. He’s already spent two years surviving day to day before Steve turned up, and yet still, he wants more. 

The days pass as he tries to remain sane, and he finds himself with time on his hands. His favourite nurse, Chloe, lends him a tablet for him to play with while his head is being examined by Shuri, and he quickly loses himself in page after page of tabloids, kittens, and articles about how to knit scarfs to avoid stress eating. He adds knitting to his short list of things to do before he inevitably pops it, and he waits for the all clear.

Soon enough he’s allowed outside the lab permanently, and he’s free to go anywhere he wants to in Wakanda. Yet the inside of his head still feels too screwed up, too tangled. He believes Shuri will remove the triggers, and he can never repay her for what she’s done, but there are some things that she can’t fix without digging out his brain with an ice cream scoop. 

The moments he looks forward to the most are when Steve visits. Once or maybe twice a month he’ll pop by, usually with some other member of his ragtag vigilante group, and he’ll smile at Bucky as if they haven’t seen each other for a hundred years. Which, sometimes, it might as well be. There are still chunks of his memory that will never return, despite the things that can sometimes suddenly click into place. With his notebooks gone, he’s never really sure how much of it is real and how much he’s imagined.

T’Challa visits too, and Bucky knows it’s only because of guilt and repentance that Bucky’s even in Wakanda, but he can’t begrudge him that. At first the king only checks in with his sister and makes sure the facilities are running smoothly, before nodding at Bucky and leaving. Bucky doesn’t mind, he doesn’t remember exactly how small talk used to work, let alone a century later in a foreign country with a king. He decides that although T’Challa’s not the easiest of people to talk to, he’s plenty easy to be around. It does get smoother as T’Challa lightens up, every now and then passing comment about something or other, usually on the state of Bucky’s hair. Apparently it’s atrocious, but Chloe always says it’s nice. It’s hard to be a consensual lab rat and not get attached to the people putting electrodes on your brain, and Chloe’s one of the especially nice ones. He lets her braid his hair one day when they’re waiting for the results of a scan, and he likes the results, even if it falls out the next day.

When Shuri removes the last part of the programming in Bucky’s head, it’s a bit anticlimactic. He’d been wondering whether he could ask T’Challa for a pair of knitting needles to keep him occupied, when Shuri squeals with delight and Chloe looks up from her tablet. T’Challa even comes around to see the results, this time in what Bucky would call normal clothes, and Bucky’s given the green light.

They run through the tests for the last time, forcing every eventuality out of him, and the words don’t even prompt a wince from him. He’s become used to them being said by Chloe or Shuri to make him respond, but now they’re meaningless Russian, and for the first time in years he feels _free_. He laughs outright at them as they try their best to get him to comply, and he can’t help drawing both scientists and T’Challa into a hug. It’s not every day you get your mind rewritten.

After that, he doesn’t know what to do and he must look vaguely startled, because T’Challa actually smiles at him and tells him to take his time. His quarters are still his, and Wakanda will always give him a home if he wants it. Thanking him, Bucky goes back to his room and sits for a while. He’s got a new notepad now, one that’s small enough to flip open in the palm of his hand, and he stares at it for a while. 

He thinks about Steve, about New York, Brooklyn and the war. He doesn’t know what to do. If he calls Steve, Steve’ll come and get him, wherever he is. Bucky knows that’s just the way Steve works; he’ll drop everything to save Bucky. If he stays, he’ll be looked after and safe, even if it sometimes felt like the walls were closing in on him. If he leaves, the entire world wants his head, and that’s not exactly comforting, especially when someone as omnipresent as Tony Stark is looking for you. 

It’s only a matter of time before his world shifts yet again, this time probably permanently. And he could go to Steve and just stick with him, he knows it, but war follows Steve like Steve follows trouble. Sooner or later it’ll be back to what they always do and that’s okay, but a lot of time on his hands has made Bucky wonder if that’s the only thing he’s good for. Steve can’t help being Steve, and Bucky loves him for it, but he doesn’t want that just yet. Not yet.

He wants to say he did something, something other than being a weapon, and he thinks Chloe had a point when she told him to write down all the things to live for. Bucky Barnes has spent so long being someone else’s person that he’s forgotten how to be himself, and that hurts. 

The next morning, he leaves for Paris.

**No. 1: Visit Paris, and okay fine, visit and actually be a tourist, going there in 1944 doesn’t count, Chloe, it wasn’t even that pretty.**

Pinterest has lied to him. Bucky thinks Paris must be really, really photo-shopped to look pretty on the postcards. Of course, it might only be the areas he’s staying in, but he’s pretty sure he saw a dog eating a dead pigeon earlier, and goddamnit, he likes pigeons. He really wants to tell Chloe this, his new-found love of the fat, cooing birds that shit everywhere, and he buys a pay-as-you-go smartphone. She’d scribbled her number hastily in the back of his notepad and made him promise to call her at least once a month, and she texts back immediately.

_> >Of course you would, you nerd. Glad you made it ok, seen the ET yet? Xxx <<_

Bucky snorts, and starts walking. He doesn’t stop until it’s starting to get dark and he’s finally standing underneath the Eiffel Tower, watching the lights flicker and the tourists take selfies against the Paris skyline. He sends Chloe a photo as a reply, and starts the walk back to his shady motel. 

He’d thought his French would be rather rusty, seeing as the last time he could remember being in Paris was a few decades ago, but it seems Hydra had a need for multi-lingual assassins as well as just your average assassin. Three postcards, a sandwich and a very awkward conversation about prostitution later, he finds himself sat on the steps outside his building writing to Steve and Chloe. He finds it damn difficult with only one hand, the paper keeps moving, but he manages it. Both cards addressed to Wakanda, he wonders for a minute about putting his own location on it, and decides against it. Bucky hopes that by knowing Bucky’s alive Steve will stop looking for him, but he doubts it will make any difference.

That night, he refuses to think about what would happen if Shuri and Chloe were wrong. Instead, he thinks about Steve, little Steve and big Steve, the 1940’s version and the one today. Steve had once told him that they should not try to be who they were before - they aren’t the same people, and that’s the way it should be. Bucky tells himself he’s not running away from Steve, or from the world he woke up in two years ago, and he almost convinces himself.

He’s not really sure what he’s doing at all.

**No. 2: discover what the fuck kind of music I like. Abba doesn’t count and you know it, T’Challa.**

This one takes a little while longer. He’s been in Paris for about three weeks, paying cash to his landlady who he’s pretty sure is also a meth dealer, but he hasn’t had to run from anyone yet, so he calls it a win. T’Challa had set him up with a lovely Wakandan passport and some visas for almost everywhere in the world, and Bucky had felt a little guilty about accepting them before remembering the bruises and scratches he’d been given by those claws. 

His neighbours are loud and he can’t afford much variety in the way of food, but he likes it well enough. There’s a record store about twenty minutes away from his nearest Metro stop that he walks past one day and decides to go in. It’s tiny, and the dark makes him twitchy, but the sign outside had promised him any and every kind of vinyl available.

That quickly turns out not to be helpful, seeing as Bucky doesn’t have a clue about what he wants, but he does come away with a second-hand CD player and some tatty earphones that only worked if he pushed them in the right way. He might as well start somewhere, and so he begins collecting discs.

They’re not very exciting and he certainly doesn’t like all of them, but it helps to shut the world out for a little bit. Heavy rock becomes a favourite of his when pointedly ignoring his own thoughts, but pop was good for walking in the city. He didn’t think screamo was good for much, and honestly, country just belongs in the trash. 

This time, Steve gets sent a small vinyl album of some electronic dance reggae along with his postcard. At night, when Bucky wakes up with a scream in his throat and a fist clenched at his side, sometimes he can put in his earphones and go back to sleep. Sometimes.

**No. 3: get an actual paying job. Like a real one. Not killing Nazis. Yes I’m aware that’s fun, Chloe, but no I’m not magneto.**

Apparently, the couple in apartment 4A run a sex shop. He finds this out one morning when he answers the door to the mailman, who persuades him to sign for a box plastered all over with adverts for pink fluffy handcuffs. He leaves the box in his kitchenette on top of the microwave, and Blu-Tacks a vague poster to the rickety front door of the building before forgetting about it for the rest of the day.

That evening he’s woken from a nap by a loud tapping at the door and two very relieved women. He doesn’t ask, but they seem intent on letting him know that even their sex lives aren’t that lively, and that most of their packages are stock for their lingerie and toy boutique.

“It’s nothing, don’t worry about it,” Bucky insists in fairly recognisable French. It’s nothing he hasn’t seen before, and to be honest, he’d like some embarrassing normality to go along with the night terrors and defensive reflexes he wakes up with every morning. 

“It’s really not okay, I’m so sorry,” the brunette continues to gush, and Bucky can’t help but sigh. 

“Whatever. Need any help shifting it downstairs?” He’s not exactly sure how much help he can be with one arm, but the one remaining’s still stronger than it looks.

“No no, it’s okay we-” Brunette gets cut off and winces as her partner with strikingly pink hair elbows her in the boob.

“We’d love some, if you don’t mind? I’ll take the other end, you can get that one?” Bucky lifts a corner up easily with his hand and follows the pair down the stairs.

And so that’s how Bucky ends up with a job. He can’t help wondering why the hell they trust a one-armed amnesiac to help run their boutique, but he supposes Paula’s just happy to have any excuse to drag Eloise away from work for a much-needed vacation.

He knows this isn’t what he wants to do for the rest of his life, but he doesn’t exactly know what he _does_ want to do, and retail’s better than snapping bones or slitting throats, even if Bucky mostly has no idea what he’s selling. There’s all the ‘normal’ stuff which sells itself, as well as some things Bucky leaves for the girls to explain, and a wall of perfume and cologne.

It’s classy, bright lights and approachable, and he’s in the middle of explaining the benefits of this one particular scent to a customer when an image slams itself behind his eyelids and lodges itself in his brain. He remembers something else with the same woodsy scent, a brush of skin, warmth spreading over him, someone’s lips, _Steve’s_ ¬¬- and he recoils with a fast jerk that leaves the customer wide eyed. 

“I’m- uh, I’d better, sorry,” he stammers over his words as he gets a wary look from the woman. “Excuse me, I’m going to get…” He trails off as Paula comes to take over from him, and he backs away to the counter and the door behind. Once it shuts, he slides down to the floor and cradles his head in the crook of his arm. There’s a bit of lint on the floor next to his foot, and he stares at it, trying to get the scent and memory out his head as it pushes on his every nerve. It’s no good, every time he closes his eyes he sees skin, the flare of heat still an echo on his skin.

He's still shuddering five minutes later when Eloise gently pushes the door open next to him and sits down beside him. She doesn’t say a thing, but places a hand on his shaking knee and squeezes.

It seems like an age before he takes a breath that he can feel expanding his ribcage, and he still can’t get the smell out his head. He mutters something about a headache to Eloise and Paula, and they’re kind enough not to say anything else.

That night, it’s not just carnage that he dreams of, and Bucky doesn’t know if that’s progress or a curse. These feelings weren’t recent, he knows that. He spends his nights trying to sort truth from lie, and he can’t quite tell where memory ends and fantasy begins. 

**No. 4: try all the things**

Now, although this one could have been related to the entire world, at the time he’d meant spices. Steve had been the type of person unable to eat anything mildly interesting, so naturally, Bucky now had to go looking for something more exciting than basil. He can just about remember winter in New York and the autumnal smell of chestnuts with cinnamon, and he wants to find more scents like that.

Grocery shopping turns out to be something he loves and loathes. He loves going to the farmers markets, seeing the fish and vegetables in the open air, the variety making him want to try things he’s never even looked at before. However, when he needs milk at three am and the only store that’s open is filled with drunk teenagers and luminescent lights, it’s not something he looks forward to.

The leaves are falling off the trees in Paris now, and one afternoon he finds a delicatessen with bottles, jars and boxes piled up the walls. Aniseed is a definite no-no, and he looks so affronted at the liquorice stick in his hand that the elderly couple next to him burst out laughing. He can’t help it, that’s the devil’s food. They recommend he try some nutmeg in his cocoa if he wants to feel warmed by winter, and he thanks them before moving on.

Nutmeg turns out surprisingly interesting, and he burns his fingers heating the spitting milk, but he doesn’t mind. Next he tries eggnog, and although it’s less of a success, it doesn’t stop him buying a tired looking cookery book and trying something new for once.

He sends Chloe some weird almond paste which Bucky’s sure she’ll hate, and another postcard for Steve, this time with a dusty coating that might have been arrowroot, or some kind of flour. He almost thinks Steve will appreciate it, and this time when he wakes covered in a cold sweat in the middle of the night, he makes himself a mug of cocoa and goes back to bed. 

**No. 5: see the world from outer space**

Yes, it’s unlikely, but it doesn’t stop him hoping. Bucky realises he’s a science nerd when the entire city is talking about warp drives, space travel, and a film franchise he vaguely remembers Chloe talking about. He sends her a text and they spend an afternoon geeking out about nebulas, black holes, and ships built to sail the stars. He supposes that if anyone’s going up to space to check out the galaxy, the Avengers will be there first, or some other alien-powered group, not him.

Then he discovers Google Earth, and he thinks how lucky he is to see this future, the one that Howard had talked about at the Expo so long ago. There’s every luxury one can dream of, and it might make him sick to think about going grocery shopping at rush hour, but _this is the future_. He skims past Madagascar, hovers over the Amazon, and travels miles and miles across the Arctic snow, thinking to himself that although it might not be him up there, it’s pretty nice down here too.

**No. 6: knit a scarf**

Bucky regrets ever even trying to knit. The woman in the YouTube video had made it look so easy, and yet for the life of him he can’t work out how to start. Sorry, cast on. No matter how many times he watches her, he can’t get the needles in the right places.

He ends up tangled with three different ends of what was once one bit of wool, and gives up after all he produces is a small triangle with bits sticking out of it. A week later though, he looks at it and tries again, this time with slightly more success.

Imagining he must look like a real fool, sitting on the Metro with two needles waving precariously around and his tongue stuck out in concentration, Bucky finally produces a neat square. Moving onto more advanced things, like hats, would need a little more professionalism. On his next commute, he starts a bobble-hat project with some help from the man next to him, aided by a tatty plan Bucky had printed out in Paula’s office. The stranger shows Bucky how to neatly purl stitches together, and Bucky almost misses his stop as he attempts to complete his row.

Over the next few weeks, he plods away at it and comes to nod at Franco if they ever end up in the same carriage, both men sat side by side with needles in the air. The lumpen, misshapen hat must be the first thing Bucky has created since he was declared a free person, and he loves it like a child. The next one he knits in brown and green, and he sends it to Wakanda for Sam with a postcard of a bridge for Steve. 

Chloe sends him back a photo of T’Challa stuffing it on Sam’s head as they wrestle on the floor, and Bucky grins at the sight of Steve standing in the background with his head in his hands.

**No. 7: get Instagram so you can send me cute pictures of you and ur bf**

That one was Chloe. Although she did have a point, not about the boyfriend part of course, since Bucky had realised most of his memories were fantasies. But she was right that Instagram was very useful in looking at cities through other people’s eyes. He decides that sometime in the future he’ll go to Iceland, to Hong Kong, Shanghai, to all those places he thought he could never go.

He likes Paris well enough; he still thinks it’s a shithole but he doesn’t want to leave. Until his meth dealing land-lady mentions she’s heard of a rich asshole with a goatee poking around the next block over, and Bucky rabbits. He leaves two months of rent, says a quick goodbye while apologizing profusely to Paula and Eloise in 4A, and he stuffs everything in his backpack. It’s becoming winter, and he’s bloody cold all the time, even with his lumpy hats and scarfs. It’s time for something warmer.

The small child on the plane next to him keeps staring at his arm, or the lack of it, and Bucky steadily gets twitchier about it. It’s not like he’s used to not having one himself, he’s always at least had something there, but now he tries not to think about it. The boy bites his lip as if he’s going to say something, and nudges his mother.

“What is it?” she asks him quietly in a language that Bucky understands but can’t pinpoint right now, and he whispers to her behind a hand. Bucky pretends not to notice, and studies his CD player intently. There’s a chip off one corner, and he’s flicking the plastic around and ignoring them so studiously that he doesn’t hear the lady speak to him until the second time.

“Uh, excuse me? Sorry?” 

“What?” No one’s ever accused Bucky of drawing out conversations, especially ones that were bound to be as awkward as this one. Honestly, if she was about to ask how he lost it, he would happily lock himself in the lavatory for the next eight hours.

“I’m sorry, you probably noticed Will staring, and I’m really sorry. It’s not you, I promise. Well, it is you, but not in the way you think,” the woman says to him quietly in lightly accented English, and nudges the boy as he curls up onto his seat. “Go on, I know you want to.”

Bucky watches as the kid pulls up both his pant legs up to his knee, and exposes metal prosthetics on both. Bucky feels himself frowning as the woman turns back to him.

“Will’s only just got them a few weeks ago. He sometimes stops people in the streets nowadays so they can have a look, and that’s a little more embarrassing for all involved, let me tell you,” she says, smiling as Will kicks his legs out and almost hits the chair in front. “He’s very proud of them, wants everyone to know. But he actually refused to wear his first ones for months, until he saw you in the news.”

Bucky twists his head so quickly to see her face that he feels something crack in the back of his spine, and his heart starts racing again. What if they’re waiting for him in Sydney? What happens if T’Challa’s passports weren’t so untraceable? What happens-

The lady reaches out in a placating gesture and smiles at him, curling a hand around Will. “Don’t worry, we’re big fans. I’m Hermione, and well, this is Will. He probably wants to show them off to you, so apologies in advance if you get a foot to the face. It happens, we can’t yet judge the length of our legs, can we?” Hermione pokes Will in the side with a laugh and he turns to giggle into her.

“Shi-stuff happens. It’s nice to meet you,” Bucky catches himself saying, and finds himself surprised when he realizes he genuinely is. “Where uh, where did you get them? They’re well made.” He aims the question at Will but doesn’t feel hurt when Hermione replies for him. He hasn’t yet considered getting a replacement prosthetic for his left arm, and Bucky wonders if this is something he’d like. He doesn’t think he’d like someone else poking around in his body, but the idea of two working hands isn’t unappealing.

“They’re designed by Stark Industries, he started a range up about six months ago. Will got into the testing route after he decided he wanted to try some again,” Hermione explains. “The first ones we tried were years ago, so bulky. But he saw you, and well, we went for it.”

“Huh,” Bucky nods along accordingly. Six months. That wasn’t long at all, Stark must have started production line after the fight in Russia.

“Do you mind if… Actually, Will, why don’t you ask?” Hermione nudges Will, and after a pause, he looks up at Bucky.

“Please can I have a photo, uh, with you?”

Hermione kisses the top of Will’s head proudly. “That’s the second longest sentence he’s said for a while. You’re honoured.”

Bucky’s frozen for a second, before he feels himself nodding, and Hermione breaks out smiling. 

“Sure. A photo sounds good.”

They spend the rest of the flight discussing Pokémon, curry recipes and Hermione persuades him to receive a direct copy of the photo through Instagram. She promises that they would never share it online, but Bucky shrugs and tells her to give it a month and post it if she wanted. It saves to his phone and later he looks at it in detail, sees his smile and Will’s wide-eyed wonder, and he wonders if this is how his life’s going to be now. He wouldn’t mind that too much.

He dreams of ice, of a fall, but this time it’s not tinted with blood.

**No. 8: treat yo’self**

He’s never liked the cold. He likes it even less now, when sometimes he can still feel a few tendrils of ice creeping under his skin, and he craves just a little bit of warmth to drive them away. He finds heat in Australia and even though it’s a little stereotypical, for once in his life Bucky would like to be a normal, boring person. He wants a holiday, if only for a few weeks.

After raiding yet another Hydra abandoned base, Bucky uses the cash he’s found to go on a shopping spree. He wanders into a mall, and swears to himself that for today, just today, he’s going to buy everything he wants to. No second guessing, no saving money. 

Three hours, a candle that smells like winter and an eraser shaped like a dinosaur later, he’s hungry. He spends half an hour in a department store, filling up a paper bag with hundreds of different pick and mix candy, and doesn’t even flinch when the cashier tells him how much it will be. Managing to wrangle bags with only one arm however, is a different matter completely. He eventually buys a new shiny rucksack, and an expensive multi-tool at the same time.

He’s sat on Sydney Harbour with the bag of overpriced sweets and an ice cream, overlooking the marina, when something starts to feel wrong. It’s not that he shouldn’t be on the bridge, he’s pretty sure that’s illegal, but Bucky figures that if they can’t catch him then it’s fine. It’s more the fact that he doesn’t have the urge to run. The walls aren’t closing in on him, and there’s no nagging feeling pushing him to bolt, or a stray thought telling him he’s got to leave. 

He finishes his ice cream and scrapes his hair out his eyes into a loose ponytail before packing up his shopping. He saw a nice bookshop earlier, he thinks he might spend the afternoon browsing in there, and find a book or a card for Steve. That man really needs to read some better sci-fi.

**No. 9: go skiing**

Maybe this one would be better off completed in the winter, but Bucky can’t wait. He finds a dry sky slope in Dubai of all places, and books a weekend away from Sydney with a beginner day course. It’s good fun, even if he knows he’s never going to be competing in the Winter Olympics.

Apparently however, he didn’t think it through enough to actually wear clothes that would help with falling down every other minute. There’s a reason they advise long sleeves, it seems. A few looks get cast his way as he walks back to his hotel with a large graze extending down his shoulder and the side of his arm. Or it might be because he refuses to wear anything other than cargo pants and thick boots in 90-degree heat. It’s probably that.

**No. 10: go see mum.**

He knows when it’s the right time to do this one. He just feels it; something is itching at his feet and telling him to move. And suddenly he doesn’t recognise anything in Australia, and it’s not a break anymore, because he knows where home is.

It’s also because he can’t stand the heat anymore. He thought he could, but he quickly decides he likes rain, drizzle, and all the sorts of things people normally complain about. Desert is pleasant enough, but it does get dull after a while. He doesn’t know how people can spend their holidays on beaches doing nothing, it must be an acquired skill.

When he gets off the plane, his feet hurt and his back’s aching from his rucksack, but there’s no way he’s having a rest now. God only knows how much longer he’s got left, so he hoists his backpack up and gets going. Standing on the bus leaving the airport, he wonders if coming back to New York was such a good idea, but he reckons he’s still got time to tick a few things off his list, this one included.

He goes to three different cemeteries before he finds the right one. Bucky thinks that might show how much of a shit he is, that he can’t even remember where his ma’s buried, and he can’t find an excuse for it. But he gets there in the end, and spends a few hours sat on the damp ground, telling her all about pigeons, Paris and shopping, all the possibilities that the future had.

No. 11- read the lord of the rings.

Bucky’s sitting on the Subway out of the cemetery, trying his hardest to get the words on the page into his brain, when there’s a short snap of a camera and he looks up sharply, slamming _The Twin Towers_ shut. The man with the camera holds his hands up in apology.

“Woah, sorry dude. I’m part of a photography project called Humans of New York, we try to capture bits of life around the city,” the photographer explains. “You’re very photogenic, you know- would you consent to having your photo taken for the project? Doesn’t have to be your face, it’s the stories that get people. We don’t use anyone who’s not keen on it. Up for it?” He looks hopeful and Bucky rolls his eyes. 

“No,” Bucky replies shortly, and goes back to his book. He reads three lines, reads them again, sighs, and looks up. “Not my face?”

The guy smiles, and nods. “We can do that. And I can show you the pictures afterwards as well, if you like?”

Bucky nods, and tries to go back to his book. It’s no use, Pippin and Merry are still yabbering on and he wonders if he can skip ahead a few chapters. He tries to ignore the click of the guys camera, and quickly gets off at the next stop, even if it means having to walk another eight blocks to find a motel with a free room. 

He finds the website later on, and he checks it every couple of days to see if anything new is posted. The next week a photo of his hands go up, and he only knows it’s his by the ratty old cover of _The Twin Towers_ and the extreme amount of dirt under his nails.

*

_Want to talk about anything?_

_Not really._

_Interesting book?_

_Someone told me I should read it. I can’t quite understand it all, y’know. Why the fuck is half the book spent in a wood? When do they get out of the wood? I’ve tried to read this three times now, always get bored in the wood._

*

**No. 12: wear a thong. Jesus Chloe, this was an actual list of things until now, what the fuck? Now I have to go buy underwear!?!**

Bucky quickly decides that thongs are very, very uncomfortable, and he moves on swiftly.

**No. 13: pet a lemur. They look fluffy.**

Unfortunately, the zoo takes unkindly to people stealing lemurs to pet, so Bucky has to skip that one. He did however, get to stroke an alpaca in the petting corner, and that’s pretty much the same thing, right? The alpaca doesn’t care if he’s a little bit unhinged, it only cares about where its next meal is coming from.

There’s a massive zoo shop, with fluffy versions of everything under the sun, and he’s severely tempted to buy a stuffed hyrax to keep him company. Bucky finds a postcard of a meercat in there for Steve, and sends Shuri and T’Challa one of two lion cubs fighting.

**No. 14: learn wine appreciation**

Apparently, this is a thing. 

Bucky isn’t entirely sure that this “thing” wasn’t made up by a very drunk person just trying to find an excuse to drink more, but he’ll give it a try anyway. He’s learnt never to judge something he’s not had experience with, and yes, that includes wine tasting.

Now, he’s a patient man, don’t get him wrong. But Bucky’s just spend the last ten minutes trying to escape the clutches of a fairly insistent wine merchant, who seems intent on selling him a bottle of something far too expensive for what looks like piss. He tried to explain he was only in the square for vegetables, he did try, but there’s only so far his patience can stretch.

“It doesn’t have floral tastes, it’s fucking alcohol!” Bucky stares at the man behind the market stall in bewilderment. 

“No no no, this is the perfect accompaniment for your dinner tonight, fresh and fruity, with an earthy undertone of berry,” the man gushes. “I’m sure your lady friend will adore it.”

And it’s that assumption that finally makes him decide he’s done with wine for the foreseeable future. He combines number 14 with the next one on the list, he figures he might as well get something useful out of his trip.

**No. 15: buy some plums**

Seeing as the last time he tried to buy fruit he got shot at, blown up and then brainwashed again, he thinks it’s good that his trip to the grocery stall only ends in brain-freeze from the ice pop he bought at the same time. After the wine man, he feels he deserves something for not committing murder, and to be honest, anything would be better than his previous experiences with plums. 

Plums carefully placed in his bag, he heads back to his motel and finally, finally gets to eat them. He’s read they’re good with memory loss, and even though he doesn’t notice any difference he quite likes them anyway. Better than what the world calls bananas now, anyway. Or wine snobbery.

**No. 16: get adopted by a dog. Or cat. Or goldfish. OR HAMSTER, FOR GOD’S SAKE CHLOE WILL YOU STOP PUTTING IDEAS IN MY HEAD**

His first full panic attack since leaving Wakanda happens over nothing. Bucky thinks it’s damn lucky he hasn’t had any before, but maybe that was because he’s only now started to realise that he’s _allowed_ to have these nice things in his life. Which seriously sucks balls.

He shouldn’t be out here like this, he’s in the middle of Central Park, staring at his shoes and he has no idea how to breath. It’s open, he’s got no advantage point but he can hear Steve’s voice telling him to take it in and out, his chest hurts and it’s getting hard to concentrate on the rocks below him.

“Woah dude, watch out! Sorry!” A man gallops past with four large dogs in tow, each pulling in a separate direction and slobbering everywhere, knocking Bucky in the shoulder. “Heel!” He yanks on the leads without much success and turns back towards Bucky. “Sorry mate!”

“’S fine, you’right? Sorry,” Bucky mumbles as he tries to catch himself. He’s still breathing hard, he thinks he’s dropped something, and he can hardly raise a hand to shade his eyes from the glaring sun. Fuck, was it always this bright out? The light glints off the guy’s sunglasses and Bucky winces, before taking another few deep breaths. He concentrates on inhaling, exhaling, and inhaling again before he realises that the man had sat down next to him and is talking to him.

“… and this is Brownie, don’t ask why she’s called that, I know she’s a white poodle, I think her owner’s on some strange shit though, good shit judging by the things he sees, and hey, hey man, you back with us?” The guy smiles at him, and gently pats Bucky on the shoulder. “I wasn’t sure how good you’d be with human contact, but it still seems a bit shitty to leave you in the middle of the cycle lane all alone. New York cyclists are a new breed of demon, man.”

Bucky stares at him, and the stranger gives him a consolidatory smile.

“I’m Barney, by the way. And well, you’ve met the rat pack. Here, pet Pizza while I sort this fuck-up out.” Barney unchains a large yellow mutt from the chaos as he tries to untangle the mess of leashes around his ankles. The other dogs, sensing freedom, start running in circles again and yapping. “Goddamnit, shut the fuck up, I swear to God if I didn’t love you so much-” 

The yellow dog darts out from the scuffle and runs straight at Bucky, launching itself at his chest. Realising his hand is free, Bucky grabs the dog’s collar and finds the words in him to tell it to sit. The dog obediently drops its ass to the ground, and Bucky looks around for the dog lead which he assumes was once attached to the mongrel. He looks back up again to see Barney staring at him wide-eyed.

“Hey, you sure you’re not like, Jesus or something? Because I swear to god, that dog’s never even sat for a biscuit before.”

“No.” Bucky frowns and considers how words aren’t quite so hard to form normally. “Pretty sure I’m not Jesus.” He tries to ignore his previous “coming back from the dead” experiences and pushes the dog back towards Barney. It whines and flumps its tail on the ground. 

“Seem’s Pizza’s taken a fancy to you. C’mon weirdo, stop getting hairs on the nice man,” Barney says to the dog.

Bucky can’t help but internally smile at the idea of being a nice man, but then the dog backs towards him and sits on his foot and he smiles for real. “Hey, I don’t mind, he’s sorta cute.”

“Sort of, you got that right.” Barney wrangles the other three into some sort of order and considers Pizza.

“His name’s really Pizza?” Bucky asks.

“Oh hell yeah, my brother named him because he kept on getting in dumpsters and only eating pizza. Smelly bugger, but he’ll give you unconditional love in return for pepperoni.”

“Huh.” Bucky reaches down and fondles the dog’s long soft ears. “Are they all yours?”

“Nah man, just dog walking for some friends. But Pizza’s a bit of a lonely boy, my brother’s job is too much for a dog as well, so he stays with me.” Barney grins at him. “Hey, you want visitation rights?”

Bucky can only blink at him. “What?”

“I mean, you get on pretty well, you’re the third person ever he’s allowed to pet his ears, and me and my brother don’t count.” With a wink at Bucky, Barney shoves a lead towards him. “He’s great at mice! Do you have mice? You won’t anymore. Oh, and he really likes pizza, that’s pretty much it.”

“I’m, I don’t know, this is-”

“Don’t fret it, he’s an easy dog to look after, just don’t eat human food in front of him and you’ll be fine.”

“You don’t even know me!” Bucky protests, incredibly confused by what was happening. 

“It’s fine!” Barney grins happily, and pats Pizza goodbye. “I’ll see you on Monday? Here, midday?”

“Uh…”

“Bye!” It’s too late by the time Bucky realises he’s become a part time custodian of a very large hairy dog, and he can only watch Barney get pulled into the distance. He somehow gets home, Pizza dragging him all the way, and wonders how he acquired a pet. Pizza just stares back at him when Bucky asks him what he’s meant to do now, and then goes to jump up onto his bed to make himself at home.

It turns out Pizza is a very shit mouse-killer. One morning, Bucky wakes up to find a rather fat mouse on Pizza’s cushion, curled around his tail. Bucky shrugs it off and goes back to bed. One more addition to a slightly neurotic household won’t matter too much, he reasons. And even if the dreams keep coming, at least he wakes up to concerned snuffling and a wet nose in his face instead of an empty room.

**No. 17: Get a tattoo.**

It’s an impulse decision that Bucky should regret, but he couldn’t be happier. In a back alley in Brooklyn, Carlos asks him if he’s got any ideas, and the image pops into his head as if it’s always been there. He tells Carlos, and they spend an hour looking over photos, drawings, sketches and then before he knows it, it’s over. It certainly didn’t hurt as much as he’d thought, and it’s nothing like the Howling Commando logo that they never got around to getting, but it’s there.

He thought that maybe it would change something about him, having a reminder on his skin of what they fight for, but he knows that it’s got to be him that changes. The inked shield sits on his left side, on his ribs under where his bicep would have lain. What the fuck, people were already going to stare if he took his shirt off, now they just had a better reason.

Tracing the plain black ink, Bucky wonders if this is a reminder that he’s not living in a dream anymore, that this will always be with him as a stable constant in his life. In the coming days it itches like hell, and Bucky’s eyes sometimes get dragged to the wonky line on the left, but he wouldn’t change it for the world.

**No. 18: Tell Stark I’m sorry. Like, actually sorry this time. And yes, fine, not start a fight.**

He’s been toying with the idea of an anonymous letter (do people still write letters anymore?) when he realises it’s easier than that. He doesn’t need to do anything at all except wait. He’s in New York, he knows he can’t be anonymous forever, and to be honest, he’s done running. He’s going to have to accept the consequences of his actions, and he doesn’t think he can procrastinate much longer.

He hasn’t made much of an effort to hide for the last few days since returning to New York, and it doesn’t take long for Start to confront him. They’re alone, which is a bonus due to the normal amount of collateral damage that any superhero conflict deals out, and conveniently Stark found him brooding on a rooftop. Would have been embarrassing if they weren’t almost instantly engaged in a firefight.

“You still going after Steve?” Bucky grits out, avoiding the next blow coming his way. He ducks, but by the time he’s got up, Stark’s recovered and still coming after him. 

“No,” the suit tells him, “but I’ll make do with you.”

The repulsor’s pointing at his face, and the whine of the beam starts up when Bucky realises there’s no better time for ticking this one off his bucket list. All the fight leaves Bucky’s heart and he can’t find the strength to step out the way.

“I’m sorry,” he blurts out, hands up in the air in front of his face. For a second, he thinks Stark is going to fire anyway, just to get everything out of his way, but then the whining dies down.

“Bit late for that, RoboCop.” 

“Never too late,” Bucky answers truthfully, and watches as the armour relaxes. “Doesn’t matter if you still want to kill me though. Thought you might want to know.”

“I still want to kill you,” the suit says brusquely. “Hasn’t changed a thing.”

“’K.” Bucky can’t help closing his eyes. It doesn’t feel like he’s giving up, but he’s just so goddamn tired. Tired of fighting, tired of wrestling with his own mind. He sinks to his knees and thinks of Steve, Eloise, Chloe, and Pizza. He’s done what he needed to do, and he knows who he is now. It doesn’t quite scare him as much anymore. “Just, do it, ‘k? I don’t think there’s another way out of this for me.” Bucky stops talking, and he’s so aware of each breath he takes that he could swear he felt the air move in his lungs.

Freedom had been nice. For the first time since before the war he’d properly had it, without the threat of HYDRA or triggerwords in the back of this mind. He wishes he could have had the courage to go back to Steve, and Chloe would shout at him for not taking the chance to do number 21 on his list, but number 18 is more important. Bucky hears the repulsors click into place, and just hopes that the other man has got the grace to be quick about it. 

Then nothing.

Then the slide and whine of the armour as Stark steps out and closes the distance between them. Eyes still pinned to the ground, Bucky can see Stark’s boots stop in front of him and pause. He watches as Tony kneels in front of him and reaches out, both hands on Bucky’s shoulders, drawing him into a short but firm embrace. Tony rocks back on his heels, and gives Bucky a considering glance, a hand on his left shoulder.

“You know, it’s a lot easier to see you when you’ve got that mop out your eyes,” Tony says, and Bucky almost laughs at that, self-conscious of the ragged band holding back his hair. He can see Tony at the edge of his vision, as he stares at a spot on the ground a few meters away.

“You’ve got Chloe to thank for that. She said, she said I needed to see for once.” Bucky’s quiet for a moment, the memory of hair being scraped back by kind hands fresh in his mind, and the silence stretches on before he sends a questioning look towards Tony, who bites his lip. 

“I had a chat. With a friend of mine, who I once hurt pretty bad. The usual stuff you know, keeping secrets, being a jerk. I mean, I thought I was doing okay. But she told me that my heart rules my head,” Tony admitted. “And then she pointed something out to me.” He pauses, and Bucky doesn’t have the courage to ask him what it was, he simply lets Tony continue.

“She reminded me you knew him like Steve did. You were friends. And you couldn’t even stop yourself.” Tony takes a deep breath and rises, the suit still standing to attention in the background. “Now, my mom, you never knew her, but if you had? You’d have liked her. Everyone did.” 

He fiddles with his hands, and turns away from Bucky, who almost misses Tony’s next sentence. “It wasn’t your fault.”

Bucky’s quiet for a moment, then says the truth. “I know. Doesn’t stop it from it being me though.”

“Yeah.” Tony nods in acknowledgement, and frowns. “That’s why I can’t…” 

“I know.” Bucky doesn’t say anything more than that, there’s a jagged edge they’re both circling around and they know it. Small steps, he reminds himself, small steps. Exactly the same as his list, he laughs to himself. “I hear you’re doing a prosthetics line now?” 

Tony frowns a little and then his expression clears, as if the thought bothering him had vanished into thin air. “Yeah. Pepper told me to.”

“No, she didn’t.” Bucky doesn’t know much, but he knows that was a personal move on Stark’s part.

“No, she didn’t,” Tony concurs. “Just out of interest, if you know, you wanted to, doyouwannacomebackwithme?” he says it quickly, as if the very words are burning his throat, and it takes Bucky a moment to work out what he’s said. Because of all the things that Stark might have said, that hadn’t crossed Bucky’s mind.

“What?”

“Like I said, I still hate you. But certain parties have pointed it out to me that you weren’t entirely in control of your actions that day.”

Bucky can’t help snorting, and he doesn’t know why it feels like every cell in his body just wants to antagonise Stark. “Yeah, what tipped you off?” Stark scowls at him and Bucky tries to school his face into something less baiting. “Sorry. I am, promise. Still trying to get the hang of this being a person thing.” 

“Nah, you’re right.” Tony flops down on the ground beside him. “Plus, I think you got the short end of the stick, in the end.”

They sit in the quiet for a moment, staring off the rooftop. There’s something timeless about the mess that is New York, and Bucky can easily see the past and present here. Somehow, they don’t matter anymore.

Stark exhales slowly. “Well, think about it, anyway. I’m sure it won’t be as nice as Paris, but it’s safe and mostly clean, when DUM-E doesn’t make a mess.”

“Tempting. Though I’m not telling you where Steve is,” Bucky warns him. “There’s nothing you can do to get that, threaten or bribe all you like.”

“That’s okay,” Tony replies with a shrug. “I wouldn’t have expected you to say anything else. Plus, I already know where they all are. You know, they’re slowly coming back to New York too. Took some wrangling, but somehow this is one thing I didn’t fuck up permanently.” Tony turns to look at Bucky, and Bucky notices the lines around his eyes, the slight salt and peppering in his hair and the tension in his jaw. “I don’t expect anything. But it might get easier, you never know. And hey, we’ve got a sauna.”

“Sure, whatever.” He tries to sound casual, but he doesn’t think Tony’s convinced. The last few months have been pretty damn simple compared to the rest of his fucked-up life, but a little more craziness never hurt anyone. 

“Good.” Tony nods, and extends a hand to Bucky, who takes it. “You can choose your rooms. Any questions?”

“Uh, I kinda half adopted a dog, is that okay?” Bucky knows he’s pushing his luck now, and he’s just a little wary of the thin ice he’s walking on, but he can’t help it. He blames the many years of listening to Steve mouth off to people twice his height, and he likes the damn dog enough to push this tentative boundary.

Tony just stares at him, before giving a resigned sigh. “Yes,” he says. “The dog can come too.”

“And a mouse?”

“A mouse?” Tony blinks a few times. “Yeah, whatever. At this point, anything goes, Barnes.”

“Well, then.” Bucky cricks his neck to one side and stretches out tired limbs, before meeting Tony’s eyes with a slight smile. “What are we waiting for?”

**No. 19: watch star trek. Or wars. Maybe both?**

It’s not that Bucky doesn’t want to see Steve. It’s more that he really, _really_ doesn’t want to talk to him. Talking would open up doors like why, what, and how, and Bucky doesn’t have any answers. Hell, he doesn’t even know what he’s doing, but whatever happens, he wants to know he can live without Steve. He’s just not sure how to tell Steve this. 

Tony seems to understand this, never pushing or asking Bucky about Steve. It’s been them and a few of the other Avengers in the tower since Bucky dragged his stuff over and moved in, as Steve is off with a small team on a mission somewhere. Bucky mostly sticks to the private Avenger floors, but he still bumps into a nice lady called Jessica, and a kid in a suit who looks about 12. They’re definitely getting younger, he swears he wasn’t that old when he was drafted. He tries to avoid crossing any of the other’s paths for fear of small talk and consequences, until one night he and Tony are in a common room and Tony offers to put a movie on. 

It turns out that Stark has an impressive collection of every science fiction film under the sun, even if he does insist on talking throughout them. Turns out, the other Tower occupants have a knack for skulking around and knowing exactly when there’s a film playing anywhere in the compound, and soon enough the room is scattered with hesitant strangers. It’s quite surprising how few superheroes have seen the classics, and although he was around during the 70’s, HYDRA certainly didn’t let him go to premieres. When Stark claps a hand on Bucky’s shoulder and pronounces him ‘alright’, Bucky freezes at the contact but doesn’t hit him back, and the thought that this might be his new normal both comforts and scares him. 

That night, he can’t remember what he dreams of.

**No. 20: learn how to cook that really weird spikey fish that can kill you**

The word he was looking for was Fugu, and he thought that maybe actually this was something he could live without doing. Because goddamnit, when it came to it, he really wanted to live. It might have been a bit suicidal to try on his own, but when he sees Bruce making his own sushi, he decides he might as well ask.

Bruce doesn’t speak much but he happily organises an afternoon between themselves with some weird spikey fish. It goes well, they don’t die and Bucky thinks it’s kinda tasty. At least it was one of the nicer ways he’d diced with death.

**No. 21: Kiss Steve.**

He doesn’t get his hopes up about this one, especially as he hasn’t seen Steve since he left for Paris. Bucket lists are never really meant to be completely done, right? It doesn’t matter if he leaves one unfinished, especially something as impossible as this one. But it’s on the list anyway, just in case.

One day Steve’s mission ends, and he suddenly doesn’t have any excuse to run away anymore. He’s flicking through the channels on the common room flatscreen when there’s an alert that a Quinjet has landed on the roof. It’s pretty anticlimactic, but Bucky puts down the remote and wanders slowly over to the window. A woman he recognises is in the flight deck, powering down the jet, and Bucky watches as Steve and Sam get out with bags on their backs, walking over to the entrance. 

Steve’s turned towards Sam, chatting away about the journey, and doesn’t see Bucky until Sam nudges him pointedly.

“What? You can’t say you’re hungry already, we ate on the way-” Steve stops mid-sentence as he turns around and sees him, door pushed open by one hand.

“Buck?” Steve stares as if Bucky’s going to disappear in front of him. His hand drops to his side and Sam catches the door before it slams shut on them both, and Bucky resists the urge to laugh at Sam’s indignant look.

“Hi Steve,” he says, unsure of what to say. “Uh, how’ve you been?”

“Oh, you know,” Steve says weakly. “Surviving. You?”

“Yeah, alrigh-”

“You left,” Steve interrupts abruptly, as if the words couldn’t wait to escape his head. “I went back, and you weren’t there. No note to me or anything, it was like we were back on another wild goose chase.”

“I’m sorry.” Bucky swallows. He seems to be getting a thyroid problem, what with all the lumpy throats that he’s getting around Steve. “I uh, sent you postcards? I hadn’t died?”

Steve snorts in derision, and Sam face palms behind him. “Yeah, they were nice. Always good when people you love aren’t dead.”

Bucky’s heart skips a beat before he realises Steve meant it in a platonic way. “I suppose. Sorry,” he offers sheepishly, before waving a hand around the floor. “Nice place you got yourself here, Stevie. The view’s pretty neat.”

“S’alright,” Steve says with a shrug. “Even if the landlord’s a bit of an ass.”

“Ah c’mon, he’s not that bad. Put me up, for one thing.” Bucky can’t help the defensive feeling that creeps over him, and he wonders how the last year would have turned out if he hadn’t been ordered to kill Howard and Maria. Less murder, for one thing, but Bucky reckons he and Tony would have made a formidable team. Together they might have even been able to convince Steve to wear the occasional parachute.

“True,” Steve admits. There’s a pause as they stare at each other, then Steve sighs again. “Why? Why Buck, why’d you not come back with me?” 

Bucky doesn’t know how to answer him. Silent for a moment, he looks around at the rest of the room. All clean lines, white space with a magnificent view across New York City. He thinks of the two years he spent on the run before Wakanda, trying to figure things out in his head while constantly checking his back, and then he thinks of Paris, Australia, dirty alleyways and dead pigeons. And of light, of making his own way in the world, doing normal things. He can be a civilian, he’s always known that. It’s the living that’s a little trickier.

Steve’s still staring at him, waiting for an answer, and now Bucky knows why.

“I needed to know I could,” he says simply, taking a breath he didn’t realise he’d been holding in. “Stevie, you’re everything I’ve got. I need to know I got a life, even if you’re not here. Once I come back? I’m never leaving you again. And this life? It’s not really something you can get a taste of and leave again, is it?” He doesn’t add on the unrequited love or the infatuation he’s had for the last 80 years. It’s not really the time or the place to lay his heart out in the open.

“Really?”

“Yeah.” He feels himself grinning at the hopeless puppy-dog look on Steve’s face. “I’m not going anywhere, you punk. Can’t get rid of me that easily.” 

“’S good to hear, Buck.” Steve bites his lip in an effort not to smile, and Bucky reaches an arm out to him, pulling him hard in a lopsided hug. Steve’s uniform is hard against his chest, and there’s several buckles and belts poking into Bucky’s shoulder, but he doesn’t care. 

“Yeah.” Drawing back, Bucky smiles, and it’s a little bit wistful when he thinks about the last few days. “And maybe it took a while, but I’m not a kid, Rogers. And I knew people would see me as this broken thing, and I’m really not, Stevie. I just needed time.”

Steve nods in understanding. “Actually, I get that. My first few months back were spent with people’s heads in my face, all the time, 24-7. It’s almost like you break a few rules and have to account for your actions or something.” He huffs a laugh as Sam coughs behind him.

“Right, you two little shits,” Sam breaks in. “So now everyone’s properly reunited and you two definitely aren’t going to start a fight, can I remind you all that this is a public floor and you can take your soppy reunion elsewhere before I catch diabetes. Good to see you, Barnes, even better when you’re not trying to kill me.” He shoulders his bag and heads off towards the elevators, putting two fingers to his eyes then jabbing them in Steve’s direction. “I need a shower. Don’t try anything.”

Steve clears his throat. “Right. Yes, of course. Buck, where you staying?”

“Uh, floor forty-seven?”

“Nice, I’ll ride up with you.”

The elevator is weirdly awkward, both of them staring forward as the buttons quickly light up in front of them. There’s a faint smell of smoke hanging around Steve, and Bucky’s not entirely sure he wants to know whether he blew something up, or whether Steve was the one who got blown up. Some things never change, he thinks to himself, and huffs aloud.

Steve glances over to him. “What?”

“Nothing,” Bucky says. “It’s just that, well, me and you. Back then, now, it’s all pretty much the same, isn’t it? Keep on fighting the good fight and hope one day that the world figures itself out. I’m just glad we’re finally both together at the right time.”

“Me too.” Steve smiles and it’s like something clicks in Bucky’s mind, a fuzzy feeling spreading down his spine and settling into his bones. It feels like contentment, and Bucky thinks he could happily get used to it. 

He does have to say one thing though. “Hey, uh, Steve?” 

“Yeah?”

“I maybe, sort of, kinda, got a tattoo?” Bucky says slowly, watching Steve carefully.

“Oh, thank god,” Steve says with relief as the door pings open. “Wanna see mine?”

Bucky blinks a few times before his brain implodes. “What?!”

*

Over time, the others trickle back, some splitting their time between the Avenger’s complex and the tower and some living off site. People come and go, SHIELD and Avenger business merging into a continuous stream of missions and contingency plans, and although Bucky is grateful that he’s never asked to join in, he can’t shake the feeling he ought to be doing something. Even in Paris he had a job, and he misses the quiet regularity it brought to his life. He mentions this to Tony in the kitchen one time, and gets a shrug in return.

“You do you, Barnes. Wanna join our rag-tag band of renegades, feel free. Wanna go be an LA stripper, go for it,” Tony says, screwdriver in one hand and a doughnut in the other. “You can stay here forever, I don’t really care either way. I’m not one for making people into the stereotypes that the media thinks they are.”

Bucky appreciates his honesty. It’s easier to deal with than Steve’s uplifting ‘you can do anything you want’ speeches. He loves the man, but sometimes his stubbornness makes him want to smash his head against a fake brick wall. “You sure you don’t want me to like, do anything? I can do a decent curry?”

“Unless you want to help me pick some new art for Pepper’s birthday, nah,” Tony says with a shrug. “Like I said, you do you.”

And so he does. Life in the Tower is crazy, stupid and crazy, but there’s some sort of rhythm that Bucky quickly adapts to. Time goes on, Bucky could say exactly how much but he’s quite happy to let the days pass by. He learns how Bruce takes his tea, why he and Sam often run into each other in the middle of the night, and that Tony should definitely drink less coffee and have more time off. Pizza takes up a permanent residence in the shared kitchen, and has a supernatural ability to know who will give him food and who merely ignores his begging. Clint laughs out loud when he finds Pizza on Bucky’s lap for the first time, and just mutters something about his idiotic brother before giving Pizza a head scratch. Bucky doesn’t want to think about what that implies, purposefully ignoring the prospect of there being more Bartons in New York. One is quite enough for him.

In the end, it’s Tony who says something. Bucky hears the lift doors open behind him in the communal kitchen one morning as he’s sat at the counter, Steve to his right and a tablet between them. They’d been watching a video that Natasha had sent them of a pink plastic dog meme, and trying to figure out if it was a code that she wanted them to crack, or whether it was just as crazy as it appeared. Having pulled an all-nighter judging by the detachment he had from the rest of the world, Tony stops at the sight of Bucky and Steve at the counter and narrows his bleary eyes at them.

“Huh.” Tony coughs pointedly and makes his way to the cafetiere. “You know Cap, that whole civil war thing could have gone a lot differently if you’d just told me you were banging Barnes like a screen door in a hurricane.”

Bucky glances up as Steve’s face goes through a journey, starting at confused, detouring through constipated and ending at violently indignant. His ears turn a vibrant shade of pink, before Bucky’s brain catches up to what Tony’s said and he freezes. Fuck.

“You do know I’m not anyone’s Captain anymore, right?” Steve says, stock still and slowly unclenching his fingers from the tablet. “But I’d really rather we didn’t talk about this _right now_ , Tony.”

“No, seriously, why? You know I’d do anything for Pepper, I’d understand that,” Tony says, waving his mug in their direction and ploughing on as he switched on the espresso machine. “Hell, I reinvented an entire virus just to save her, I think I’d understand why you’d want to keep Barnes alive.”

“Thanks, Tony, it’s appreciated,” Steve says tightly. “But what I was going to say is that we aren’t together. At all. No romance, no, no banging, or whatever you’re thinking of. So please. Stop.”

Tony’s quiet for a moment before the machine beeps at him. He picks up the cup and gives them both an appraising look. “Really?”

“Yes. Really.” Steve tries to smile, and it’s not a pretty sight. “Now, if it’s alright with you, I’m going to-”

“Huh. Why?” Tony cuts Steve off as he tries to get up from the table.

“Because unrequited feelings are messy, especially in wartime, and I don’t want to go into it,” Steve hisses at Tony, and pointedly refuses to even look in Bucky’s direction. Bucky’s come to terms with never having Steve as anything more than his best friend, but he’d be lying if he said that this didn’t hurt. If he said that Steve turning away from him right now didn’t feel like needles digging itself into his chest, as if he couldn’t feel his stomach crumpling slowly. He stares down at the table, and hopes to God that they both leave before he loses his composure entirely.

“On whose side?” Tony barrels on. “Because to me, it looks like both of you.” He raises his eyebrows and turns to leave, still hugging his cup. Bucky can’t stand to look at Steve, he’s got this feeling that Steve’s going to brush it off and he feels too raw to cope with that. For a moment they watch as the elevator closes, and then Steve sighs again, hand brushing back his hair.

“I was hoping… Actually, never mind.” Steve sits back down heavily next to him and drags the tablet towards himself, angrily stabbing the power button as if it had personally offended him. Shit. Better carry on, as if nothing’s happened, as if the small amount of hope that he’d carried since Wakanda hadn’t broken into shards with Steve’s words.

“So, uh, how are you and Sharon?” Bucky stares at his knees as Steve clears his throat.

“We gave it a shot. Didn’t work out. That’s fine, it was nobody’s fault.”

“Oh.” Bucky frowns. “Sorry, Steve.”

“Not your fault, Buck. She’s a good friend though, I’m lucky to have her.” Steve refuses to look up from the tablet and Bucky doesn’t blame him. 

“Still sucks though.”

“Yeah.” Steve exhales swiftly. “Seems like we were just destined for different paths, y’know?”

Bucky thinks that he does know, about paths being already wrought for them before they even get a chance to choose. “I know one thing for sure. You’re built for trouble, punk, no escaping it.” 

“Seems like it sometimes, doesn’t it?” Steve fiddles with his hands, picking at his perfectly square nails as if they’d personally offended him. He draws a deep breath in and Bucky doesn’t really want to hear what he was going to say, but couldn’t move despite it. “Ignore Tony. He doesn’t know what he’s talking about.”

Bucky hums in acknowledgement. “It’s fine, Steve.”

“He’s a bit of a romantic, you know,” Steve continues despite Bucky’s silent protests to stop. “Prefers to see something where there isn’t anything.”

“Yeah,” Bucky manages to say. “Don’t worry, I know you don’t feel the same way.”

“Yeah.” Steve’s shoulders seem to bend under an invisible weight, then suddenly he looks up, almost jumping to his feet. “Wait, what?”

“Doesn’t matter.” Bucky shrugs. “Hey, I’m kinda done for today, do you think-”

“No, what do you mean?”

Bucky runs his hand through his hair. At some point soon he probably needed to cut it, but it was a good distraction at times like these. “It’s fine, Steve. Just leave it alone, yeah?” He starts to rise, but Steve steps in front of his knees and stops him.

“Buck, it’s not fine. I’m not leaving this be,” Steve says earnestly. “What did you mean?” 

“Can you just not for one minute?” Bucky’s almost pleading now, before his heart is ripped further out of his chest. “Just, don’t. Please.”

“Okay I’ll break this down. Did you mean _you_ have feelings for _me_?”

Direct and to the point, the words force the air out of Bucky’s lungs and he gives up, slumping back down again on the barstool. He can’t quite meet Steve’s eye, and thinks that the faster he can get out of here, the faster he can get back to the real world, the world without Steve and the humiliation that was sure to come. He’d sure miss the Tower, Sam, Tony, and hell, he’d have to take Pizza too, but now that he wasn’t being hunted it would be a lot easier to return to Europe. Maybe he’d get a little place in London, run a bookshop or work in a café, do normal human things.

“Fuck this for a bunch of rabbits, or whatever the saying is. You do, don’t you?” Steve almost sounds incredulous, and Bucky still can’t stand to look at him.

“Fuck off Steve. Why do you care?” His voice is rougher than he’d like it to be, but then Steve gently places his hand on Bucky’s jaw and draws his chin up, forcing him to look Steve in the eyes. 

“Because, you idiot, so do I.” 

Bucky can’t breath. He finally notices the brightness around Steve’s eyelashes, the way the corner of his mouth is twitched up in a half smile, as if he was hanging onto Bucky’s every word. And he is, Bucky realises. He looks up at Steve and he wonders how he’d never seen this before.

“I…” Thoughts and words are hard to find, and yet as they gaze at each other there’s not much they need to say. The world goes quiet, and all he can feel is Steve’s hand on his face, holding him gently in place as Steve leans in. There’s only a few inches between them, but suddenly it feels like ten miles, and Bucky reaches out to drag him in. Steve’s so close Bucky can see the tiny freckles dotted on his nose, and then suddenly Steve’s lips are on his. He’s warm and Bucky savours every bit of him that he can taste. Someone groans and Bucky can’t tell which one of them it is, but it doesn’t matter, because Steve’s there, in his arms, on his skin and everywhere. They draw back slowly, foreheads still pressed together.

“Seriously?” Steve says softly as they breath in each other. “You really want this?”

“Yeah.” Bucky nods, nudging Steve’s nose with his own. “I really do.”

“Since when?”

Bucky shrugs, still slightly dazed. “Forever?”

“Wow.” Steve grins lopsidedly and ducks his head. “Well, we’ll just have to make up for lost time then, won’t we?” 

Their second kiss feels as natural as breathing, as if Steve’s lips were made for Bucky. They stay like that for a long time, Steve between Bucky’s legs as Bucky’s arm winds around Steve’s waist. Steve fiddles with Bucky’s hair, and Bucky breaths in, out, in and out. There isn’t any music, but Bucky thinks it’s pretty poetic as it is. They talk for a while, without grand romantic confessions but with the feeling that something had changed, forever and for the better. The way that Steve looked at him now, it made everything else dull in comparison.  
Eventually he shifts on the stool and looks up. He figures this is as good a time as any to voice the thoughts that had been running around his head for weeks.

“Hey Steve?” Bucky says into the silence.

“Yeah?”

“I’ve been thinking…”

“That’s dangerous.” 

Bucky laughs. “True. But sometimes it’s useful.”

“Also true. What are you wondering?”

“What do you think about me… Not doing this?” At Steve’s horrified look he quickly backtracks. “No, no no, not us, this is fine! This is great! You’re great! I meant, more this?” He extracts his hand from Steve’s waist to wave it at the space around them, the Avengers sign hanging almost directly outside the window. 

“The Avengers?” Steve asks with a raised eyebrow.

“I love this place, but I just don’t know how much of it is me, or how much of me is made by others,” Bucky admits. “This place, your job, it’s not something you can just do as a hobby, you know?”

Steve pauses for a moment, but then continues to stroke Bucky’s hair. “I get that.”

Now the words were out, Bucky couldn’t stop himself from spouting what had been brewing in his brain for the past few months. “I never wanted any of this. I’m not a good soldier, you know that Steve. You’re the one that volunteered, and to be honest, you were the only thing keeping me from desertion.” 

“I didn’t know that,” Steve says quietly with a small smile.

“’Tis true. I’d follow you to the end of the earth, Stevie, but I’m done playing the good little soldier. I’ll have your back, when you need me, but I’m going to do something else for once.”

Steve nods. “That makes… A surprising amount of sense. What’re you thinking of?”

“I don’t know,” Bucky admits with a shrug. “Something that doesn’t involve blood. Maybe teach? Learn? I could go back to school, they’ve got so much more stuff now than we ever had. Would be nice to do something sciencey.” 

“Be an astronaut,” Steve says quietly, smoothing his thumb over Bucky’s cheekbone, and Bucky smiles.

“Yeah. That’s the dream right, space and all that shit?”

“You’d be perfect for it.” Steve huffs a little laugh and looks down at their feet. “So uh, I guess it’s a bit late to ask you to become an Avenger then?” He says it wryly, but with a smile, and Bucky takes a deep breath.

“Oh, Steve.” He presses a small kiss to Steve’s hand on his face to soften the blow, and Steve looks as if he already knows the answer. 

“You’d be good at it, Buck.”

“Hell, I’d be amazing,” Bucky says with a snort. “But you’ll be better. I’ve already done enough damage.”

“I thought maybe, you know, you’d like to help the recruits? There’s some real talent out there, enough for a whole team of Young Avengers really. Maybe it’ll be something you’d like to do one day?”

“Maybe. Maybe not.” Bucky sighs, and mulls it over. “I can’t do what you do. I’ve done enough of it already. You don’t need me to train others, you’re doing a perfectly good job yourself. But when you need backup and someone to protect your sorry ass, I’m gonna be there.” 

“The big ones then, huh?” Steve flashes a grin and curls his hands around Bucky’s hips. “I can’t say that’s a surprise. But I’d like to think I know you well enough that you’ll always have my back.” 

“’Til the end of the line, pal.” Bucky smiles, and reaches his hand up to curve around the nape of Steve’s neck. He draws him back down for a sweet, short kiss, before pulling back. “Thank you.”

“There’s nothing to thank me for,” Steve says. “You’re incredible. I’d be okay with you working on the moon as long as you were happy. Okay, maybe a little bit lonely, but we’d make it work.”

“We would. And maybe, in time that’ll change. I don’t know what I’m doing tomorrow, let alone next year,” Bucky says before he remembers something else that had been playing on his mind. He snaps his fingers and slides off the stool, gently pushing Steve towards the door. “But I do know one thing, and right now, you need to apologize to Tony.”

“Tony?” Steve looks confused, and Bucky’s struck by a very familiar feeling. He recognises it as a little bit of despair, a bit more resignation, and what Chloe would call a fair amount of mental face-palming. He also realises he associates it purely with Steve. 

“Yes. Apologize. That thing that people do when they’re wrong. Or what you do when you need to _make up with your friends_. You’re not five anymore,” Bucky says with a pointed look at Steve. “And then maybe thank him for us, hmm?”

Steve winces. “I’m not sure that’s a good idea Buck, I mean, we’re kinda, it’s odd, we’re getting along-”

“Now, Steve.” Bucky gives him a glare that he knows worked on Steve in 1939, he can only hope it will work today. “Like it or not, he’s your friend. Hell, he’s my friend too, and I have done nothing to deserve him. We need other people, he was there for you, and he trusted you. And you’ve both shoved your heads so far up your asses you can’t see the light anymore.”

Steve makes a face at that, and scrunches up his nose. “It’s not really-”

“Now.”

And surprisingly enough, Steve goes. Bucky watches as he heads to the elevator that will take him to Tony’s workshop, and smiles to himself. Bucky doesn’t know what happened down there that day, but he thinks it’s worth it when Steve emerges later, standing a little bit straighter and metaphorically bright eyed and bushy-tailed. He doesn’t say anything to Bucky, just brushes a chaste kiss over his forehead and tugs him into his arms. 

“Maybe you’re right,” Steve concedes with a tilt of his head. “We do need people. And I know we’re not the same, but that won’t stop us.”

“No shit, Sherlock. If I have learnt anything through this whole fucking mess, it’s that Steve bloody Rogers doesn’t give up easily.” Bucky rests his head against Steve’s shoulder and feels Steve huff softly down the back of his neck.

“That’s a reference I definitely get. Where did you learn that one?”

Bucky thinks about it. “It might have been Chloe. Or Eloise, I’m not sure anymore. But in a good way, don’t worry,” he adds quickly after Steve pulls back with a worried expression. “A normal way, anyhow.”

“Seems like we’ve got a lot of catching up to do, then.”

“You can say that again.”

“Seems like we’ve-”

“No, you dick,” Bucky says with a laugh as Steve tries to keep a straight face. “You know what I mean.”

“Yeah,” Steve says softly. “I do.”

And Bucky thinks that maybe, maybe this will be the time it works out. That this will be where the filtered Instagram pictures start, where they can watch the sunset as a group of friends and not end up scattered to the four winds, with nothing linking them but bad memories. The blood-stained dreams won’t ever go away, but now he can see something else when he wakes up from them. 

Steve has a funny way of giving a hopeless man something to look forward to. Tomorrow.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so much for reading, this was a labour of love which is very out of date with canon now, but I hope you enjoyed it! Warnings include acceptance for death which could be seen as suicidal, he’s a bit of a sad boy, but we love him <3


End file.
